Christmas Rush Meets a Threat of Snow: The Perfect Storm?

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KIRKWOOD, MO (KTVI)-- As the minutes ticked down before most retailers shutting down for Christmas, area stores were filling with customers. That’s not unusual, but there was an added element to this year’s crowds: the fact that a significant snow storm could hit before the stores re-open.

At the Schnucks grocery store in Des Peres, last minute shoppers jammed the parking lot and had the store buzzing. It’s hard to say if the final ingredients for a multitude of Christmas parties were the driving force behind the crowds, or if they were being boosted by people stocking up for the possibility of snow Christmas night into Wednesday.

What is clear, at least to Schnucks’ Terry Winfree, is that keeping the bread shelves stocked was a nearly impossible task.

“Very hard hard. Very hard. Can’t even keep up on it,” she said with a laugh. “Every time I turn around I’m back filling the same thing again. I mean you’re talking twenty, thirty times a day. More bread, more bread.”

Milk was also going fast, but so were anything and everything one might stock up on for Christmas day, along with a few last minute gifts. We found Tammy Brooks in the toy aisle holding a giant stuffed dog.

“My nephew wanted a doggie, and I promised him, sort of kind of a real dog, so hopefully he’ll think it is,” she said.

Asked if she was worried about such a last minute trip, she told us, “Pretty worried. I kind of waited to the real last second, but I kind of like it that way, so I don’t get real indecisive.”

That was about 5pm. Two hours later, nearly everything was closed. One of the few exceptions is Walgreens. There, last minute Christmas items were flying off the shelves.

“We’re actually closing down every store,” Sherry Jackson told us. “We were at Kohl’s, they were closing Kohl’s. We went to Dillard’s, they closed Dillard’s. So I guess it’s kind of our tradition. We’re gonna go close all the stores down. We keep looking for that last minute bargain that we need.”

A few such bargains remained, though as Christmas Eve drew toward its close, attentions seemed to be drifting toward the morning’s emergency batteries, and a supplies for the now expected the next night.